Green Waters
by whitesakura
Summary: Under the spell of Trowa's words, Quatre discovers all the hues of an ocean he has never seen. But there is one color he already knows, and that is the one he cherishes. Shounen-ai.


Warnings: Unbetaed. Shounen-ai. Sap.

Notes: The setting for this fic is Quatre's desert compound during a lull between missions. Storytelling Trowa! is borrowed from Stephanie3's "The White Cat," an unassuming tale with plenty of substance, and a fic I highly recommend.

* * *

Green Waters 

"I want to go to the ocean."

Trowa looked up from his book by the fireplace to glance at the slim blonde form by the window. The other boy had his back to Trowa with his arms crossed behind his back. Trowa slowly placed the book face down on the fireplace, leaving it open to where he had stopped reading, and slid his way up without any noise. The acrobat approached with a quiet grace, long limbs that seemed even more tapered and sensuous in the firelight, and stopped a courteous distance from Quatre's still figure without invading the stargazer's private space.

"Oh, hello Trowa." At the sound of footsteps, the up-tilted head dipped down and around like a swan's crown on a long neck, a movement unhurried and bewitching. Trowa saw it and admired it. He imprinted into his mind how Quatre looked with his head half-cocked to the side in surprise, the azure eyes still misty with distance, catching that fleeting butterfly-like moment in the visual archives of his memory. Quatre's expression suddenly lit up with an inner fire and Trowa prepared for the smile.

"I almost forgot you were here!" Quatre laughed, turning to face his house guest with two hands on his hips. Quatre's eyes flickered briefly on Trowa's form, a quick cursory glance that melted away into a thoughtful stare at the fireplace. The friendly smile became more subdued and gentle. Quatre's eyes crinkled. "You started a fire."

"I thought you might get cold."

"No, I'm fine. I'm used to the desert. I was only looking at the stars for a little while."

Trowa glanced at the archway and the opened patio windows with a faintly raised eyebrow.

Quatre looked embarrassed. "You're right. I didn't have to open the windows, and it _is_ cold. But it was just for a - " The blonde glanced down at the watch on his left wrist. "Twelve thirty already?! But I could have sworn not more than half an hour has passed!"

Trowa looked amused at the mock horror on the violinist's face.

"Ah well!" Quatre sat down with a "whump!" and began to stretch his legs. He tipped his back over and flopped down against the carpet like a child diving into his parents' feathered bed for the first time and sighed. "I guess I better stay here by the fire you've so graciously lit and get warm before I go back upstairs to get some sleep."

Trowa joined Quatre wordlessly on the floor, shifting his lean frame in final acquiescence to Earth's gravity. The firelight danced across Trowa's body, but Quatre did not look; he was more engaged with the fire. Unhindered, Trowa peered at Sandrock's pilot with an arm perched under his head as the blue eyes flickered to and fro among the flames without really seeing them.

"I want to go to the ocean," Quatre whispered after a silent moment, his voice wistful, trance-like. "I've been on artificial colonies, made of titanium and steel. I've been here on Earth, in stone cities, wet swamplands, on top of high mountains and hills. I've seen lakes and rivers and streams, and I've seen the desert," Quatre's eyes flickered away, over Trowa's shoulder and back towards the window, "Gold and orange and yellow and blue. All the colors of dawn, all the colors of dusk. But I haven't seen the ocean, not yet."

"I've seen it."

Quatre's eyes darted. Without warning, Trowa found himself pinned under their sharp assessment.

"I've sort of seen it," Trowa hastily amended, trying to soften their blow.

"Sort of? How does someone 'sort of' see something?" Quatre asked, sincerely bewildered.

"I traveled around the world with a group of mercenaries when I was young. We moved often. I didn't see that much, just glimpses between work. You understand…"

"Yes," a brief nod.

"It's different."

"Different?"

"It depends on where you are." For a moment, Trowa's eyes acquired a heaviness. They seemed to be responding, wary as if there was a lurking thief beyond their quiet circle of firelight that only he could see moving in the half-gloom of Quatre's desert compound. Then the moment passed and even his inflectionless voice seemed to have relaxed. "It was different colors."

"Like sunset?" Quatre asked eagerly, maneuvering closer to the storyteller slowly binding his full attention.

"No. Not like that. They didn't change like sunset. The colors were just always_ there_, sliding in and away with the surf. It's hard to explain." Trowa rearranged his body hesitantly, coiling and uncoiling himself as if he could force the words, the mystery wedged deep within him, to be revealed. Quatre watched the fire's glow play on that twisting form; angles that once were rough became soft, places of enlightenment became dark while other things bloomed, revealed under the merrily crackling luminescence.

"It-It's okay, Trowa. What were the colors like?" Quatre spoke, dragging his eyes away, overwhelmed when something in his being had begun to spark dangerously as he looked at the light and shadow caressing Trowa's body, so close to his own. _What's this?_ Quatre stared bravely out of the corner of his eyes to catch Trowa smiling at him. Trowa's gaze was soft, but when it caught its subject peeking back at it, it startled and dropped suddenly, shielding itself behind a waterfall of yielding mahogany hair.

"Blue," Trowa murmured to the ground. "Most of it was blue. In the Caribbean it was pastel, but a lot of it was dark. It was sometimes gray and black when it stormed. Once I was fixing a generator out in the rain, somewhere North, I think. The oil and dirt washed from the rocky shore into the ocean, and it became cloudy and brown. The oil looked like black ink, spreading on an unrolling parchment."

"Blue, gray, black, and brown. I see," Quatre said nodding to himself. The Winner heir had seen their various hues in the sky, in the desert, and in the handwritten words of an ancient holy text he still read everyday. He had experienced them all before.

"And green."

Quatre started, but Trowa was re-immersed in deep thoughts and did not notice the jerky movement.

"There was green. It wasn't a very…pretty green," Trowa mused. He turned his head and Trowa's hair shifted so Quatre could see one eye cautiously reappearing behind their barrier, the ripples gone, its depths returned to their normal stillness while the other remained safe and hidden. "The ocean was murky, probably from pollution. We were fighting with our mobile suits knee-deep in the water and being pushed further into the waves. A lot of us went down. We were outnumbered. We'd expected to catch them in the forest and had color-camouflaged ourselves accordingly, but instead they launched an assault on us when we landed on the sandy beach."

"What happened?"

"Eventually, I sank, too." Trowa closed his eyes. "It was a long way to the bottom. I sat there, waiting for many hours. Then, I turned on a small searchlight on my mobile suit, letting it pulse in the dark. Slowly, the others who had survived, and the many like me that had faked injury, blinked back. One by one we stirred, like stars growing on the rim of dusk as the sun sank lower and lower. Our enemies couldn't see us. The water was too deep. Too green." Trowa smiled, but as soon as it was born, the expression began to wilt. "They set up camp, and in the middle of the night while they slept soundly like little children, we rose out of the ocean transformed into nightmarish sea monsters. In a short time the mas - it was all over." Trowa's throat caught for a second, then he frowned and turned away although Quatre continued watching his back intently.

"It…It didn't seem like a very good green."

"No. It wasn't," Trowa said curtly.

In the dying firelight, two gundam pilots laid side by side in the same silence, thinking thoughts.

"Trowa?"

"Hmm?" Trowa shifted around on the rug to answer Quatre's inquiry. Quatre noted the acrobat's perturbed look was gone; Trowa blinked sleepily. All defenses were down.

"But what color do you think that ocean would have been, without all the pollution?" _And without all the war…_

"I'm not sure…lighter maybe?" Trowa yawned, his eyes struggling to remain open.

"No, not lighter." Quatre said unwaveringly.

"You think so?" Trowa's forehead furrowed faintly at the conviction in Quatre's tone and the one visible eye that continued to hold Quatre captive seemed to shake off a little of its tiredness.

"It'd probably be a little clearer, a little less full of hurt and sorrow. Deep green. It's really a beautiful color when you think about it."

"You sound like you've seen it before," Trowa murmured. The visible eye fell shut. Just before Trowa crossed the blurry border between wakefulness and sleep, he thought he heard Quatre whisper something tenderly, in a hushed tone that was like a secret between two...

"I have."

Owari.


End file.
